A.M. market numbers: January 8, 2009

| North American markets | International markets | Bonds | Currency | Commodities |

North American stock markets headed for a lower open as employment reports in the U.S. and Canada widely missed expectations.

The U.S. Labour Department said that the American economy lost another 85,000 jobs during December. Economists had expected a flat showing, or perhaps a slight job loss of around 1,000.

A sharp drop in the labour force, a sign more of the jobless are giving up on their search for work, kept the unemployment rate unchanged at 10%.

Revisions to the previous two months’ data showed the U.S. economy actually generated 4,000 jobs in November, the first gain in nearly two years, while it lost 16,000 more than previously estimated in October.

Following the release of the data, the Dow Jones industrial futures moved 15 points lower to 10,530, the Nasdaq futures declined 4.75 points to 1,872.75 while the S&P 500 futures slipped 2.4 points to 1,135.1.

Earlier, Statistics Canada reported that the Canadian economy shed 2,600 jobs during December, well below economists’ expectations that 20,000 jobs would be created.

Economists pointed out that December’s performance followed a huge gain of 79,000 jobs during November.

Still, BMO Capital Markets deputy chief economist Doug Porter says the jobs report shows that “the economic recovery will be uneven, with overall growth likely to pale compared with past recoveries.”

The Canadian dollar was down a slight 0.06 of a cent to 96.56 cents US following the employment report.

Oil prices were down for a second session with the February crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange down 24 cents to US$82.42 a barrel.

Other commodity prices were lower as the February bullion contract on the Nymex declined $13.40 to US$1,120.30 an ounce while March copper slipped two cents to US$3.41 a pound.

Overseas, Asian stocks advanced ahead of the U.S. unemployment data. Japanese shares led the way, with the Nikkei 225 stock average rising 1.1%, the Shanghai index closed up 0.1% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ticked up 0.1%.

London’s FTSE 100 dipped 0.19%. Frankfurt’s DAX was up 0.21% and the Paris CAC 40 rose 0.57% as other data showed that unemployment in the 16 countries that use the euro rose to 10% in November for the first time since the single currency was introduced at the start of 1999.

In corporate news, higher sales helped Quebec-based pharmacy chain Jean Coutu Group Inc. to a profit of $44.6-million or 19 cents a share in its latest quarter. That’s a vast improvement from the year-earlier period when Jean Coutu had a $399.2-million loss, or $1.66 per share, largely because of writedowns of its investment in the Rite-Aid pharmacy chain in the United States.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, says the 0.1 percentage point increase from October brought the unemployment rate to its highest level since August 1998.

(The Canadian Press)

North American markets

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	Open	Change	2009 Full Year
Dow Jones	10,606.86	+33.18 or +0.31%	+1.71%
S&P 500	1,141.69	+4.55 or +0.40%	+2.38%
NASDAQ	2,300.05	-1.04 or -0.05%	+1.36%
TSX Composite	11,887.51	-57.03 or -0.48%	+1.20%

International markets

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	Open	Change	YTD
Nikkei	10,798.32	+116.66 or +1.09%	+2.39%
Hang Seng	22,296.75	+27.30 or +0.12%	+1.94%
SENSEX	17,540.29	-75.43 or -0.43%	+0.43%
FTSE 100	5,515.94	-10.78 or -0.20%	+1.90%
CAC 40	4,045.40	+20.60 or +0.51%	+2.77%
DAX	6,032.17	+12.81 or +0.21%	+1.25%

Bonds

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Bonds	$Current	$Previous	%Yield
Cdn. 10-year bond	100.98	101.13	3.63
Cdn. 30-year bond	113.90	114.12	4.15
U.S. 10-year bond	96.19	96.25	3.84
U.S. 30-year bond	94.72	94.88	4.70

Currency

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BoC Close	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.9676	0.9686
US $	1.0335	1.0324

Euro Spot Rate	Today	Previous
Canadian $	0.6761	0.6758
Euro	1.4791	1.4798

Commodities

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Gold	AM	PM
London Gold Fix ($US)	$1,121.75	$1,130.25

Oil	Open	Change
WTI Crude Future (US)	$82.36	-$0.30 or -0.36%

(01/08/10)